Harry Potter and the Ice Cream Sundae
by koalapoop
Summary: Because there had to be some reason Dudley flew off the handle about the amount of nuts on his stupid ice cream. OC, short, probably one-shot.


A/N: Dear lord, it's been a while since I've written anything. As such, the harshest criticism is welcome. I definitely don't own Harry Potter or anything else that makes money.

Perry was not happy. She'd been at the zoo for hours and had yet to see anything exciting. The biggest disappointment had been when she watched the tigers being fed. Instead of getting to watch the big cats take down a gazelle or deer like she'd hoped, Perry saw some handler... give them some cold, long-dead meat. It wasn't fair. If the tigers had to live in a jail, they should at least get nice, fresh meat that they'd caught themselves. When she voiced her thoughts aloud, her parents just laughed. Perry frowned. It was completely unfair for them to laugh when the poor tiger was suffering so. It was her older sister, Annika, who came to her rescue.

"It would cost way too much to give all the carnivores fresh meat. It's much cheaper to cut one up for them all to share."

"Oh," replied Perry, sort of satisfied. She looked around at the crowd that was milling about. There was a very strange looking family that was glaring at her. Three of the family of four were blonde (though Annika would say the woman looked like hers came from a bottle), all amazingly groomed and well-dressed. Two of the males were quite fat. There was a dark-haired boy with them that looked like he really didn't belong, with messy hair and baggy clothes and taped glasses, and the three blondes seemed intent on letting him know it. Perry gave them a grin and a cheerful wave, causing the adults to scowl and the skinny kid to cover his mouth and wave back minutely.

Perry heard her name being called and ran back to her family. Grabbing her dad's hand, she jumped up and down excitedly, giggling mischievously.

"Dad, Dad!"

"What, what?"

"There's a walrus over there," she said, pointing.

"How's that, sweet, we're in the big cat exhi..." He trailed off as he turned to see what his daughter was pointing at. Her mother and sister turned as well, resulting in an appreciative guffaw from Annika and a scandalized "Piritta!" from her mother.

Perry looked down at her feet, trying to keep herself from grinning. "Sorry, Mum." Her dad squeezed her hand. "Come on," he said in a tone that sounded like he was trying not to laugh himself, "Let's go see the lions."

"Maybe one of the lionesses will get loose and take down a spider monkey," Annika added, taking Perry's other hand as they made their way to the, hopefully, viscous felines.

Perry was tired. They'd been to see almost all of the animals without rest, at her insistence of course. Now she was sitting at a table in one of the zoo's restaurants with her sister while her parents were in line to get lunch for them. Swinging her legs and fidgeting, Perry looked around. It was on her second scanning of the little cafe that she noticed the family who'd glared at her earlier waiting in line. The dark-haired boy wasn't with them, though. She looked again and found him waiting two tables away from her. With a quick glance at her sister to make sure she wasn't looking and another to make sure her parents were still in line, Perry slid from her seat and made her way over to the boy.

"Hullo," she said cheerfully. The boy started and Perry giggled. "What's your name?"

"Harry," the boy replied, looking a little wary.

"I'm Perry." She stuck out her hand waiting for him to shake. "Hey, our names rhyme! Are you getting ice cream, too?"

"I don't think so," said Harry miserably. Perry frowned, then the remembered something.

"Are they trying to break your spirit?"

"What?" Harry looked bewildered.

"Well, my granddad was a prisoner of war, and he told me the enemy would starve them to break their spirit so they'd be easier to torture. Are they going to torture you?"

Harry looked thoughtful. "I don't think so," he said, "it's always like this."

"Oh." Perry looked up at the approaching family, noticing that the adults and the fat blonde boy had ice cream but hadn't brought one for Harry. She looked at the knickerbocker glory the fat one had. "That's all the nuts you got? Mine had twice that."

She watched the ensuing tantrum and the mother's simpering with interest for a few seconds before she heard her name being called. Flashing a quick grin at Harry, Perry skipped back to her family and her own ice cream.


End file.
